


His Angel

by HisAngelThursday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Also posted to my tumblr), Castiel Whump, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9117397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisAngelThursday/pseuds/HisAngelThursday
Summary: “He said you’d never love me.”Dean, still dim with post-orgasmic haze, lethargically turned to face the man (or rather, man-shaped entity) lying next to him.  It was the first thing Cas had said all evening, other than varying renditions of Dean’s name.“Wha?”  he said stupidly, still breathless and not really processing the remark.“Lucifer, I mean.  He said you’d never love me,” Cas repeated, tone and expression utterly unreadable, his usual poker face still fixedly in place.  “Not the way I wanted you to.”





	

“He said you’d never love me.”

Dean, still dim with post-orgasmic haze, lethargically turned to face the man (or rather, man-shaped entity) lying next to him. It was the first thing Cas had said all evening, other than varying renditions of Dean’s name. 

“Wha?” he said stupidly, still breathless and not really processing the remark. 

“Lucifer, I mean. He said you’d never love me,” Cas repeated, tone and expression utterly unreadable, his usual poker face still fixedly in place. “Not the way I wanted you to.”

At present, it was December, the coldest night they’d had in years, and the two had just made love for the first time since Cas had moved back into the bunker. 

Their relationship had edged firmly away from ‘platonic’ months prior, if it could ever have been described that way to begin with, not with some grandiose confession of love, but with shoulders smushed together in restaurant booths, gazes held too long, hands touching one another and not moving away. 

It began with Dean’s “friendly” suggestion that Cas start spending nights in his room, all for the innocent and magnanimous reason that he “must get lonely, just wanderin’ around the bunker all night.” 

Miraculously, however, they wouldn’t actually make love until weeks afterwards. For once in his life, Dean seemed content to take things slow.

Now, Dean looked at his -- boyfriend? Lover? Partner? None of the terms seemed quite right -- unsure of what to make of the statement or how to reply. Consolation never had been Dean’s greatest asset. 

“When he was...inside of me,” Cas continued. “He’d sometimes visit me to pass the time. Torment me. He lived in my head for months, it was more than enough time for him to learn how I felt about you.”

*If he didn’t know already,* Dean wisely decided not to add. In retrospect, neither he nor Cas had been the subtlest tools in the shed.

“He said...he said you and I were like dog and master. That you were my whole world, but I would only ever be a fraction of yours. And he said that the only reason you kept me around was because I was useful to you." 

Dean swallowed. He felt like he should say something, anything, but he didn’t have the faintest clue what to say.

Luckily, he didn't need to pontificate much further on the matter, because Cas continued, "When he got bored of that, he moved on to showing me memories of you. Of things you said and did. Things to demonstrate how little you cared for me."

"...Like what?" Dean hesitantly inquired, not sure he really wanted to know. 

"Harsh words, mostly: your...critiques of my hunting skills. Calling me a sissy, and a coward. A...'baby in a trench coat.'"

In spite of the gravity of the situation, Dean had suppress a chuckle at the bitterness behind the remark, and opened his mouth to say that these brusque remarks were the kinds of things he said to everyone. 

"When you said..." Cas went on, adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. "...When you said nobody cared that I was broken."

Dean's mouth immediately fell shut, suddenly dry. He hadn't been sure Cas remembered that, and he'd been hesitant to remind him -- the last thing he needed to do was remind Cas what a colossal dick he'd been back in those days. 

"For Lucifer, torment of all kinds is an artform," Cas continued. "And when he saw the distress these memories caused me, and he showed me them on repeat: he showed me the day you made me leave the bunker, forced me to relive how utterly hollow that moment felt. He showed me the day you told me we couldn't work together, the day you accused me of soliciting the suicide bombers. He showed me the day you...you beat me, under the Mark of Cain's influence. That moment when I felt sure you were going to kill me." Cas's eyes closed, shuddering faintly at the unpleasant memory. "On days when he was feeling particularly frustrated, he would take it out on me, by showing me those memories over and over. Eventually, Dean, I...I started to truly believe the things he told me: that I really was a dog, whose only purpose was to serve you. That..."

Jerkily, he turned his head to look at Dean. He wasn't crying -- Dean wasn't entirely sure if angels could cry, or if that kind of emotional inexpressiveness was just another one of Cas's aspergers-esque idiosyncrasies. But his crystaline blue eyes were wide and sad, and unless Dean was completely mistaken, unusually damp. 

"...That you would never love me."

Dean swallowed. There was so much he wanted to say, to explain his actions, his reasoning, why for so long, he felt so inclined to push Cas away. 

He wanted to explain the firmly-ingrained self-loathing, how he'd been raised during a time in which men who loved men were considered to be the lowest form of vermin the human race had to offer. 

He wanted to explain the first and only time John had ever caught him with a boy, how he had looked at Dean with such complete and utter disgust that it had taken months to get him to look at him like a human being again, much less his son. 

He wanted to explain the days when food was scarce and money was scarcer, when John was nowhere to be found and the art of hustling pool was a skill Dean had yet to master, when the only remaining option was to get on his knees behind the truckstop for whatever greasy lowlife was willing to pay him for it. 

He wanted to explain how filthy that had made him feel, how he'd spent hours gargling with mouthwash afterwards to try to get any remnants of the taste out of his mouth, and hours more scrubbing his skin raw in the shower in a fruitless effort to feel clean again.

He wanted to explain how that shame had carried into his adulthood, how hard he'd worked to suppress his attraction towards men (or anything that looked like one), how frustrated he'd been when this proved futile. 

He wanted to explain how easy it had been to blame -- Cas, with his bluer-than-blue eyes and endless sea of stubble, whose full, chapped lips Dean couldn't seem to stop imagining against his own -- to push him away and force the feelings down, carefully hidden behind a thick layer of self-imposed manliness and misdirected anger.

He wanted to explain that he had always cared he was broken, and that he always would, but that he couldn't admit that to himself. Not then. Because if he had, he would have also had to admit to himself that he was broken because of Dean.

He wanted to explain that Cas was the single most important thing in his world, albeit in a different way than Sammy: Sam was Dean's charge to protect, but Cas was his idol. Something to be worshiped and adored, and prayed to in times of trouble. 

He wanted to explain everything. But the words caught in his throat, clogging in their stampede to get out.

So, he said the simplest thing he could think of: 

"I love you." 

Cas looked at him in disbelief, and it occurred to Dean that this was the first time he had said this out loud. He'd wanted to say it years ago -- once, he almost had, while Cas was still under Naomi's influence, and Dean's usual bravado failed to get through to him. But for whatever reason, he couldn't seem to get the words out, like some dick of a script adviser was preventing him from saying them. 

"I need you" had seemed like a healthy alternative, though in retrospect, it was a cheap substitute.

"I love you, Cas," he repeated, relishing in the unexpected freedom of saying it out loud. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you. Since you pulled me out of hell and made me whole again. Since the first time I heard your voice, even though it damn near blew out my eardrums," he added, with a short huff of laughter at their unfortunate first meeting. Sobering slightly, he went on, "I used to wonder if...y'know, when you were putting me back together again...you left a little bit of yourself inside. Your grace, maybe. 'Cause back then, it was the only reason I could think of, for how I felt about you: like you were a part of me. And suddenly, I couldn't remember what my life was like before I had you."

"Dean," Cas murmured, the name sounding like sacrament on his tongue. Like that four-letter word was the single most precious thing in all of creation. 

And to Cas, maybe it was. 

The next thing Dean knew, he was peppering tiny kisses all across the stubbled jawline, straddling his angel once more. His angel -- Dean liked the sound of that. Somehow, none of the other terms (lover, boyfriend, partner) seemed to work for what they had. 

"I love you," Dean murmured, in between kisses. "I love you, Cas. I love you." Now that he'd started saying it, he could seem to stop. 

"Dean, is this..." He felt Cas's throat contract as he swallowed. "...Is this a dream?"

Dean chuckled, smiling against the soft, prickly flesh of his angel's neck.

"I hope not, angel," he grinned, returning to his ministrations. "'Cause if it is, I'm just gonna have to say it all again as soon as I wake up."

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea where this sappy shit comes from, but I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.


End file.
